2019 Hugo Awards on Scintilla
‘Twas the year of the lady–Lady Astronaut, that is. Mary Robinette Kowal stole the show with her ethereal dress and her wonderful novel that is sweeping this year’s science fiction awards, adding to her Locus and Nebula wins by taking home the Hugo for best novel. We loved The Calculating Stars at Scintilla.info, and apparently the award givers love it, too.
We were also big fans of Tomi Adeyeme’s novel, Children of Blood and Bone, and she also won a Hugo for Best Young Adult Novel. Children of Blood and Bone is part of the Africanfuturism movement, and it is a welcome addition to what has been too long an American and European centered genre. Africa is the cradle of humanity, and her stories are all of our stories, whether they are of a distant past or a fantastic future.
Becky Chambers is working on an amazing series of books with her Wayfarers novels, and we have reviewed all three of them on Scintilla. Her work was honored with the Hugo for Best Series. Unlike most series, there is limited connection between the novels with only a character or two in common between any of them. All of them occur in the same well-imagined universe, though, and we hope there are more Wayfarers books to come. The Long Way to a Small and Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, and Record of a Spaceborn Few feature spaceships and aliens and lots of creativity and excellent plots and are well worth the time.
We also reviewed the entire Murderbot series by Martha Wells, and she won a Hugo for Artificial Condition, following up on her previous Hugo in the series for All Systems Red. If you are looking for some shorter books packed with great stuff, this series of novellas is a great choice.
Congratulations to these authors we’ve reviewed, and to all the nominees and winners. You can find five of the best novel nominees reviewed on our site, and we are very pleased to have read all of their outstanding books.